Report: Apple Sandbags Home Screen Web Apps

Web apps saved to the home screen of iOS devices run less than half as fast as the same apps launched from the Safari browser and don’t have offline caching access, according to a report by the Register. The site said web apps opened from the home screen aren’t able to take advantage of iOS’ updated Nitro JavaScript engine in 4.3, offline caching and synchronous mode for better-looking apps. While this could very well be just a bug that’s yet to be fixed, it raises conspiracy suspicions of some who wonder if Apple is not in any hurry to have web apps on the home screen compete with native apps, the sale of which results in a hefty cut for Apple.

“It makes web apps (that work with any platform) slower, while native apps are not penalized. That increases Apple’s revenue because it will encourage people to make native apps instead of web apps, which has a two-fold effect: one, they get 30 percent of the app’s revenue, and two, you have to buy an iPhone to use it,” said one commenter.

This, of course, assumes the performance problem is intentional. Again, this could be a bug, though the Register quotes a developer who alerted the Mobile Safari team to the situation and said Apple indicated the situation won’t be fixed. I’ve reached out to Apple and am waiting for a response. In the meantime, here are the details of the problem, according to the Register:

The Safari browser includes a new Nitro JavaScript engine, but that doesn’t appear to be available to apps launched from the home screen. That translates into web apps on the home screen running 2-2.5 times as slow as their Safari counterparts. Home screen web apps also can’t take advantage of web caching systems that allow an app to keep running even when offline. Web apps are also using an older “synchronous” mode of presenting content, instead of the new “asynchronous” mode which results in better screen rendering. The Register said that the issues also affect native apps that utilize Apple’s UIWebView API, basically native apps that are built in HTML5 and wrapped with a native wrapper. That means that native apps that lean heavily on web content can also see decreased performance.

If suspicions prove true and Apple is throttling the performance of some web apps, that would call into question its intentions behind supporting HTML5. Already, it has an advantage in promoting HTML5 and mobile web standards because they usually result in apps that are behind natively built apps. But the gap is closing, and some developers are looking at building more applications on the web, especially in light of Apple’s new subscription rules. I doubt Apple will leave this situation uncorrected, now that it’s come to light. If it wasn’t planning on fixing this quickly, it will now. It’s hard to see the argument be leaving this situation in place, except to boost downloads of native apps and hinder competition. Unlike the subscription rules, which can be interpreted as a benefit to consumers, Apple can’t really paint this in a positive light, so stay tuned for an update.